Showing 374 results

Authority record

Tanner, Joseph

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN6
  • Person
  • 1860-1931

Joseph Robson Tanner was born on the 28th July 1860, the son of Joseph Tanner, who headed a printing firm in Somerset. He was educated at Mill Hill School, before coming up to St John’s in 1879. There, he placed in the First Class of the Historical Tripos, and was both Treasurer and President of the Union Society. Tanner became a Fellow of the College in 1886; from there, he also held posts as College Lecturer in History (1883-1912), Director of Historical Studies (1905-1920), Assistant Tutor (1895-1900), Tutor (1900-1912) and Tutorial Bursar (1900-1921). He was also a member of the Council of the Senate, the Press Syndicate, and edited the Historical Register of the University of Cambridge.
Tanner continued to write frequently after his post-war retirement from College services, producing and editing works such as the Cambridge Medieval History, Samuel Pepys and the Royal Navy, and English Constitutional Conflicts of the Seventeenth Century.
Tanner was married in 1888, to Charlotte Maria Larkman. He died on the 16th January 1931, and his funeral was held in the College Chapel the following week.

Obituary in the Eagle: Vol. 46, Easter 1931, p. 184

Mayor, Joseph B

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN5
  • Person
  • 1828-1916

Joseph Bickersteth Mayor was born in the Cape of Good Hope, on October 24th 1828, to Rev. Robert Mayor and his wife Charlotte. He was educated at Rugby School—of which he would later become a Governor—before going up to Cambridge in 1847; following his two older brothers, Robert and John. All three Mayor brothers would become Fellows; Joseph was appointed Fellow in 1852, the year after he took his degree. He was also given the position of College Lecturer in Moral Science.

Mayor was ordained as a Deacon in 1859, and a Priest in 1860, the same year that he became a Tutor at Cambridge. Three years later, his marriage to Miss A.J. Grote made it necessary to give up his position at the College, and he instead became the Head Master of a school in London. This was later followed by his appointment as a Professor at King’s College, first in Classical Literature and then in Moral Philosophy. He left his post in 1883, and moved to live out the rest of his life in Kingston-on-Thames.

There, Mayor undertook important work with local schools, but most of his focus fell to writing. He published many different works, the most important of which include his translations of Cicero, De Natura Deorum, Epistle of St. James, Clement of Alexandria, and Epistle of St. Jude and Second Epistle of Peter.

Mayor died on the 29th of November, 1916.

Obituary in the Eagle, vol. 38, Easter 1917, p. 323

Lloyd, Roderick

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN48
  • Person

Fifth son of Hugh Lloyd (1546–1601), Welsh headmaster of Winchester College. Admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 5 December 1684, but does not appear to have been called to the Bar.

Boys Smith, John Sandwith

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN39
  • Person
  • 1901-1991

The Reverend John Sandwith Boys Smith was born in Hampshire on 8th January 1901, the son of Edward Percy Boys Smith, Clerk in Holy Orders and St John’s College Alumnus, and Charlotte Cecilia Sandwith. Boys Smith matriculated at St John’s College, Cambridge, in 1919 and read Economics/Theology, graduating BA in 1922.

After a short time at Marburg University in 1924-25, Boys Smith was appointed to the Fellowship of St John’s in 1927. This was to be the start of a long commitment to the College, and it was a position which, apart from the 10 years he was Master of the College (1959-69), he was to hold until his death in 1991. He served as Chaplain 1927-1934, Director of Studies and Supervisor in Theology 1927-1952, Praelector 1929-1931, Assistant Tutor 1931-34, Tutor 1939-1939, Junior Bursar 1939-1944 and Senior Bursar 1944-1959.

Scott, Sir Robert Forsyth, Master of St John's College

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN36
  • Person
  • 1849 - 1933

Robert Forsyth Scott was born on 28 July 1849, at St Thomas Manse, Leith, Edinburgh. He was the eldest son of the Rev. George Scott and his wife, Mary (daughter of Robert Forsyth). He was baptised on 16th August 1849, and was educated at High School, Edinburgh, and then in Stuttgart and London before being admitted pensioner to St John's College in 1871. At St John's he was elected to a scholarship in 1873, after which he obtained his BA (4th Wrangler, 1875), MA (1878), before being elected to a fellowship in 1877, which he retained until 1908. He was Assistant Master at Christ's Hospital 1877-9. Scott then went on to study law, being admitted to Lincoln's Inn in December 1876 and then being called to the Bar in 1880. He was Junior Proctor to the University 1887-8 and Senior Bursar for St John's College 1888-1908, before being elected to the office of Master following the death of Charles Taylor in 1908. He also served the office of Vice-Chancellor for the period 1910-12, and received the honorary degree of LL.D. at St Andrews. In 1922 he became a Bencher of Lincoln's Inn, and in 1924 he received the honour of Knighthood.

During the course of his career he had several important publications, which included the History of St John's College in 1907, and many papers on the College History. His recreational interests included rowing, as well as antiquarian and biographical pursuits. In 1898 he married Jenny Webster, the daughter of General Thomas Edward Webster. Robert Forsyth Scott died on 18th November 1933, at Cambridge.

Alici, Antonello, Prof

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN359
  • Person

Associate professor in History of Architecture, Dipartimento di Ingegneria Civile, Edile e Architettura, Università Politecnica delle Marche, Ancona, Italia; Visiting Professor at Silpakorn University Bangkok, Thailand; Life Member St John's College, University of Cambridge, UK; Life Member Clare Hall, University of Cambridge, UK; Membro Associazione degli Storici di Architettura (Aistarch); Member Society of Architectural Historians of Great Britain (SAHGB)

Adams, John Couch, astronomer

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN356
  • Person
  • 1819-1892

Adams was born at Lidcot farm, Cornwall, in 1819, the eldest son of a tenant farmer. He developed an early interest in astronomy and in 1831 was sent to his cousin's academy, where he distinguished himself in classics and spent his spare time on astronomy and mathematics. Adams's progress was such that his parents decided that he should be sent to university, and in October 1839 he sat for examinations at St John's College and won a sizarship. In July 1841, at the end of his second year, he wrote himself the following memorandum: 'Formed a design ... of investigating, as soon as possible after taking my degree, the irregularities in the motion of Uranus, which are yet unaccounted for; in order to find whether they may be attributed to the action of an undiscovered planet beyond it ...' Having won the highest mathematical prizes in his college, Adams graduated in 1843 as senior wrangler and won a fellowship. He could now return to his deferred investigation of Uranus. By October 1843 Adams, aged just 24, had arrived at a solution of the inverse perturbation problem and although his first result was approximate, it convinced him that the disturbances of Uranus were due to an undiscovered planet.

In February 1844 Adams applied to the astronomer royal, Sir George Biddell Airy, for more exact data on Uranus. With Airy's figures Adams then computed values for the elliptic elements, mass, and heliocentric longitude of the hypothetical planet. He gave his results to James Challis, Director of the Cambridge Observatory, in September 1845, and after two unsuccessful attempts to present his work to Airy in person, left a copy at the Royal Observatory in October. Airy replied to Adams a few weeks later but did not institute a search for the planet until July 1846.

In the meantime the French astronomer Urbain Jean Joseph Le Verrier had independently published several papers on Uranus and reached the same conclusions as Adams regarding an exterior planet. It was as a result of Le Verrier's efforts that Johann Gottfried Galle, of the Berlin Observatory, discovered Neptune on 23 September 1846, less than one degree distant from where Le Verrier had predicted it would lie. While Le Verrier was showered with honours, Adams's earlier prediction, which agreed closely with Le Verrier's, remained unpublished. First publicised in a letter from Sir John Herschel to the London Athenaeum in October 1846 it provoked a long and bitter controversy over priority of discovery and the issue became a public sensation. Adams and Le Verrier themselves, however, met at Oxford in 1847 and became good friends. Adams was offered a knighthood by Queen Victoria in 1847 but declined. In 1848 the Adams Prize was founded at Cambridge and the Royal Society awarded him its highest award, the Copley Medal.

Adams was elected President of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1851 and began work on lunar theory. On the expiration of his fellowship at St John's he moved to Pembroke College in 1853 and shortly afterwards presented to the Royal Society a remarkable paper on the secular acceleration of the Moon's mean motion, showing Laplace's 1788 solution to be incorrect. While this provoked a sharp scientific controversy, Adams was later proved to be right.

In 1858 Adams became Professor of Mathematics at St Andrew's University but returned to Cambridge in 1859 to become Lowndean Professor of Astronomy and Geometry. In 1861 he took over as Director of the Cambridge Observatory and two years later married Eliza Bruce of Dublin. In the 1860s and 70s he undertook work on the Leonid system, observations for the Astronomische Gesellschaft program, work on Bernoulli numbers and Euler's constant, and the arrangement and cataloguing of Newton's mathematical papers, presented to Cambridge University by Lord Portsmouth. While much of Adams's later work has been superseded, as the co-discoverer of Neptune he occupies a special place in the history of science.

Seymour [née Alston; other married names Grimston; Hare], Sarah, Duchess of Somerset

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN353
  • Person
  • 1631–1692

Sarah was the daughter of Edward Alston of London, physician, President of the College of Physicians, who was knighted by King Charles II at the Restoration in 1660, and his wife Susanna, daughter of Christopher Hudson of Norwich and widow of Jasper Hussey, fishmonger of Billingsgate. Sarah married in 1652 George Grimston, son of barrister and politician Sir Harbottle Grimston. George Grimston died three years later and their two children died in infancy. Sarah married, secondly, Lord John Seymour, son and heir of the second Duke of Somerset. Unlike her first marriage, this was a marriage of convenience by which Seymour benefitted financially and Sir Edward gained entrance into the circle of the aristocracy; it was an unhappy match. Her marriage settlement did allow for a measure of financial independence, with £300 per annum set aside for her sole use, a wise precaution given the Somerset family's financial difficulties and her husband's gambling addiction. Following Somerset's death in 1675, Sarah was permitted to retain her title and her control of her late husband's estates in Herefordshire. In 1682 she married Henry Hare, second Baron Coleraine, again through the marriage settlement retaining some financial autonomy. She died in 1692.

Hawise of Chester, 1st Countess of Lincoln

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN350
  • Person
  • 1180 - c. 1241-43

Daughter of Hugh de Kevelioc, 5th Earl of Chester, and Bertrade de Montfort of Evreux. She had four sisters and one brother, Ranulf, who succeeded his father as 6th Earl of Chester when he died when Hawise was one year old. In 1231 Ranulf resigned the title of Earl of Lincoln in Hawise's favour, making her Countess of Lincoln suo jure (in her own right), with which title she was formally invested by the King in 1232, the day after Ranulf's death. With her sisters, she was his co-heiress, and inherited the castle and manor of Bolingbroke as well as other large estates. Hawise married first Robert de Quincy, with whom she had one daughter, Margaret, who inherited her title and estates. She married secondly Sir Warren de Bostoke, with whom she had one son, Sir Henry de Bostoke.

Wordie, James

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN35
  • Person
  • 1889-1962

James Mann Wordie was born on the 26th April 1889, the son of John Wordie and Catherine Mann. He came up to St John’s in 1910 after taking his degree at the University of Glasgow, to study Natural Sciences.
During the First World War, Wordie joined the Royal Artillery and served in France. Upon returning to Cambridge, he was elected a Fellow of the college in 1921, and became a Tutor in 1923. In the same year, he also started a tenure as Junior Proctor of the University. Then, in 1933, Wordie was appointed Senior Tutor, before becoming President in 1950 and, finally, Master of the College in 1952.
Outside of his services for St John’s College, Wordie was a keen enthusiast of Polar exploration. In 1914, he was a geologist and chief of scientific staff on the Endurance expedition: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s attempt to make the first land crossing of Antarctica. The party’s boat became stranded in ice, and Wordie was marooned for some months on Elephant Island. However, this experience did not dent his enthusiasm, and Wordie remained involved in Polar exploration for the rest of his life. He was Chairman of the Scott Polar Institute in Cambridge and president of the Royal Geographic Society. Wordie’s work afforded him many honours, including the Founders’ gold medal of the Royal Geographical Society, the Daly medal of the American Geographical Society, and, in 1957, a knighthood.
In 1923, Wordie married Gertrude Henderson; together they had two daughters and three sons; all of their sons also attended St John’s College. Sir James Wordie died on the 16th January 1962, but his name lives on in the Wordie glacier in Greenland and the Wordie Crag in Spitzbergen; both are named for him.

Goddard, Peter

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN348
  • Person
  • b. 1945

Born on 3 September 1945 to Herbert Charles and Rosina Sarah Goddard, Peter Goddard was educated at Emanuel School, London, before entering Trinity College, Cambridge where he obtained his BA (1966), and both his MA and PhD (1971). He then became a Research Fellow at Trinity College (1969-73), during which time he also became a Lecturer in Applied Mathematics at Durham University (1972-74). He then returned to Cambridge, where he progressed through a multitude of university positions, including: Assistant Lecturer (1976-5); Lecturer (1976-98); Reader in Mathematical Physics (1989-92); Professor of Theoretical Physics (1992-2004); and was a member of the University Council (2000-03). Goddard was also the Department Director, Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences (1991-94), becoming a Senior Fellow (1994-2010) after resigning this position, and then an Honorary Fellow (2011).

During his time teaching at Cambridge, Goddard also held positions at St John's College. He was elected to a Fellowship of the College in 1975, and then proceeded to be: Lecturer in Mathematics (1975-91); Tutor (1980-87); and Senior Tutor (1983-87). He remains a Fellow, but did take a break from his fellowship during the period 1994-2004, when he was serving as Master of the College. Goddard was also elected as Fellow of the Institute of Physics (1990), Fellow of Imperial College (1987), and an Honorary Fellow of Trinity College Dublin (1995). He was awarded a Fellowship of the Royal Society in 1989 and appointed CBE in 2002. He was also awarded an ScD Cantab in 1996, and has held a significant number of roles in the US as well as Britain.

He married Helena Barbara Ross in 1968, and together they have one son and one daughter. Goddard is currently Emeritus Professor at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, having started there as Director (2004-12) and then becoming Professor (2012-16).

Hinde, Robert Aubrey

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN347
  • Person
  • 1923 - 2016

Youngest child of Ernest Bertram and Isabella Hinde, born on 26 October 1923 in Norwich. He was educated at Oundle's preparatory school followed by Oundle senior school. At the start of the Second World War Hinde signed up for the RAF, and following a length training in Africa, Hinde was posted to a Coastal Command, initially on Catalina flying boats, and then Sunderlands, before being promoted to flight lieutenant (1941-5). Following demobilization, Hinde received an exhibition to St John's College, where he read chemistry, physiology, and zoology; achieving a First in Part II of the Zoology Tripos in 1948. On 11 August the same year, he married Hester Cecily Coutts, who had been studying at Newnham College, Cambridge. They then moved to Oxford where Hinde undertook his DPhil at the Edward Grey Institute, and had four children together (two sons, two daughters). In 1950, Hinde returned to Cambridge at the invitation of William Thorpe to take up the position of curator of the Ornithological Field Station at Madingley, which he retained until 1965. Under Hinde's guidance, Madingley field station evolved as an important centre for the study of behaviour. Hester and Robert Hinde divorced in 1970, and on 7 May 1971 Hinde married Joan Gladys Stevenson, an American psychologist. They had two daughters together, and collaborated on the study of child development.

During his career, Hinde published a vast amount of work, and was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (1974), Honorary Fellow of the British Academy (2002) and the Royal College of Psychiatrists (1988), foreign associate of the National Academy of Sciences, USA (1978), and an honorary foreign member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1974). He also received awards and medals for his various research. Nevertheless, he was always a devoted member of St John's College, being a Fellow (1951-54, 1958-89, and 1994-2016) and, after retiring from his Royal Society Professorship in 1989, serving as Master (1989-94). He was also made an Honorary Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford (1986), and Trinity College, Dublin (1990), and received honorary doctorates from from the Université Libre (Brussels, 1974), Université de Paris (Nanterre, 1979), Stirling University (1991), Göteborg University (Sweden, 1991), Edinburgh University (1992), University of Western Ontario (Canada, 1996), and Oxford University (1998). In 1988 he was made a CBE and in 1996 was awarded the royal medal of the Royal Society.

Hinde was not only a dedicated academic, but also recognised the need for a responsible society, and was committed to the peace movement. He became chair and president of the British Pugwash Group and president of the Movement for the Abolition of War. He maintained an academically active life long after his official retirement age, during which period he wrote some of his most socially-important books. He died of prostate cancer at the Arthur Rank Hospice in Great Shelford, Cambridge on 23 December 2016. A memorial service was held in St John's College Chapel on 13 May 2017, and a conference in his honour was organised by the college on 1 June 2018.

Mansergh, Philip Nicholas Seton

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN346
  • Person
  • 1910 - 1991

Younger son of Philip St George Mansergh and Mrs E. M. Mansergh, born on 27 June 1910 in Tipperary, Ireland. Mansergh was educated at Abbey School, Tipperary and St Columba's College, Dublin (1923-9). He then entered Pembroke College, Oxford, in 1929, where he read modern history. Despite not managing to obtain a first, he began postgraduate research under W.G.S Adams (Gladstone professor of political theory and institutions). He achieved his DPhil in 1936, and was subsequently appointed as a tutor (but not Fellow) in politics at Pembroke. This post enabled him to produce a major work, Ireland in the Age of Reform and Revolution (1940). At this time he was also secretary to the Oxford University Politics Research Committee. In 1939 Mansergh married Diana Mary Keeton (undergraduate at Lady Margaret Hall, daughter of the headmaster of Reading School) on 12 December 1939, and their marriage produced 5 children (3 sons and 2 daughters).

During the Second World War , Mansergh became the Irish expert and director of the empire division of the Ministry of Information, which led to his appointment as OBE in 1945, and then as an assistant secretary at the Dominions Office (1946-7). After this foray into the civil service, Mansergh returned to academic life in 1947 as a research professor at the Royal Institute of International Affairs. In 1953 he moved to Cambridge as the first Smuts Professor of the history of the British Commonwealth. From this position, which he held from 1953-1970, Mansergh was concerned to raise the profile of the study of both Irish and Commonwealth history. During this time, Mansergh also became an honorary fellow of Pembroke College, Oxford (1954), and Trinity College, Dublin (1971), obtained an Oxford DLitt in 1960, as well as a fellowship of the British Academy in 1973. He was Master of St John's College from 1969-1979, after which he returned to being a Fellow until his death in 1991. Perhaps his greatest work was the publication, as editor-in-chief, of the 12-volume, highly-acclaimed series Transfer of Power in India, 1942-7 (TOPI), which appeared from 1970 at the rate of one a year.

Mansergh died at Brookfields Hospital, Cambridge, on 16 January 1991, from pneumonia which set in at the end of a prolonged period of ill health which was unfortunately begun by a fall on an escalator of the London underground.

Taylor, Charles

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN345
  • Person
  • 1840 - 1908

Born 24 May 1840 in Westminster, Charles Taylor was the son of William and Catherine Taylor. After losing his father aged 5, Taylor moved to live in Hampstead. He was educated at St Marylebone and All Souls Grammar School, London (in union with King's College), and afterwards at King's College itself. He won prizes at both of these schools, and it was at King's College that he began his lifelong friendship with Ingram Bywater (later Regius Professor of Greek at Oxford).

Taylor entered St John's College in October 1858, where initially he devoted most of his attention to mathematics. In 1860 he was elected to one of the new foundation scholarships, and in 1862 he obtained his BA as 9th Wrangler and was also placed in the second class of the classical tripos. In 1863, he obtained a First in the theological exam, and in 1864 he won the Crosse scholarship and the first Tyrwhitt scholarship. He was elected to a fellowship in 1864; obtaining his MA in 1865, the Kaye Prize in 1867, and his DD in 1881. Taylor also had interests in the Church, and was ordained deacon in 1866, priest in 1867, and was Curate of St Andrew the Great 1887-8. He was also Select Preacher at Cambridge 1887, 1893, and 1899, and 1873 he was appointed as College Lecturer in Theology; a position from which he soon made his mark as a Hebrew scholar.

In 1877-8, Taylor took an active part in the revision of the statutes of the College, and in 1879 he was chosen as one of three commissioners to represent the College in conferring with the University Commission. Before these new statutes could come into force, the College Master, W. H. Bateson, died, and Taylor was elected as his successor on 12 April 1881. From November 1880 Taylor was a member of the Council of the University. He represented the university at the 250th anniversary of the founding of Harvard, where he received an honorary degree on 8 November 1886. He served in the office of Vice-Chancellor of the university 1887-9, and in 1889 he was one of two university aldermen who were chosen as members of the borough of Cambridge; an office he retained until 1895. He made important donations to both the University Library and to St John's College (including the Lady Margaret Boat Club), and published many works from 1863 onwards. He was also President of the University Theological Society 1902-3, and of the Philological Society 1900-1.

As a student at St John's, Taylor was fond of sculling and rowed in the college boat races from 1863-6. He was always a great walker, and proved to be an energetic mountaineer during the period 1870-8; writing for the Alpine Journal in 1872, and being a member of the Alpine Club from 1873 until his death. In October 1907, Taylor married Margaret Sophia (1877-1962), daughter of the Hon. Conrad Adderly Dillon, but he then died suddenly less than a year later on 12 August 1908 whilst on a foreign tour at the Goldner Adler, Nuremberg. After a funeral service in St John's College, his body was buried in St Giles's cemetery, Cambridge, on the 17th. A stained-glass window was placed in the College Chapel by his widow to commemorate him.

Bateson, William Henry

  • GB-1859-SJCA-PN344
  • Person
  • 1812 - 1881

Fifth son of Richard Bateson and Lucy Wheeler Gordon, William Henry Bateson was born on 3 June 1812 in Everton. He was educated at Shrewsbury School, and admitted as pensioner to St John's College on 12 October 1829. He graduated in 1836, senior optime in mathematics and third in the first class of the classical tripos (BA 1836, MA 1839, BD 1846, DD 1857). He was elected to fellowship in 1837 and became second master at Leicester collegiate school. He briefly studied for the bar, being admitted to Lincoln's Inn on 12 April 1836, before taking holy orders. He was ordained deacon on 1 December 1839, and priest c. 1840. Between 1840 and 1843 he was attached to the Cambridgeshire parish of Horningsea, and was Vicar of Madingley 1843-7.

Bateson was a tripos examiner at Cambridge and a successful private classics tutor, before becoming St John's College preacher in 1843, followed by steward, and then Senior Bursar 1846-57; a position from which he was able to restore financial security to St John's. In 1841 he was the Rede Lecturer, and for the period 1848-57 he was Public Orator of the university. Bateson was also a key link between two important reformative committees, serving as secretary to both the 1849 revising syndicate established to modify university statutes, and the 1852 royal commission on Cambridge which recommended general university improvements. Following his success as Senior Bursar, Bateson was elected as Master of St John's in 1857. Later that same year, on 11 June, he married Anna Aiken, with whom he had six children. In 1858, he served the office of Vice-Chancellor of the university, and in 1872 he as one of several academics appointed to the second royal commission on Oxford and Cambridge universities, which investigated the extent of their property and income. A strong believer in the improvement of education, he was on the Cambridge improvement board and was on the governing bodies for Shrewsbury and Rugby Schools. He was also the inaugural chairman of the Perse Girls' School, Cambridge, where he was regarded as an enthusiastic promoter of higher education for women.

Generally thought of as leader of the liberal party in academical matters, Bateson used his positions of Bursar and then Master of St John's to introduce reforms in the College, such as leading other Cambridge clergy in a successful campaign to abolish religious tests and liberalising St John's College statutes in 1848 and 1857. In 1880 he succeeded Chief Justice Cockburn on the 1877 statutory commission and was influential in framing new college statutes for St John's, which were effected in 1882, a year after his death. Bateson was responsible for the construction of the new chapel and lodge at St John's in 1865-9, personally financing the wooden-panelled ceilings, and a few weeks before his death he anonymously donated £500 to college funds. He died in the Master's Lodge on 27 March 1881, and was buried on 31 March in Madingley churchyard.

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